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November 26, 2006
In Which I Confess to Aiding and Abetting
Jim West and Jim Davila call our attention to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on tomb robbing in Israel and Palestine. Here's a sample from the article, but, as usual, the whole thing is worth reading.
At least two nights a week, Abu Moussa, the Bedouin leader of Herodion, takes his sleeping bag, tools and a small group of men and heads into the mountains to practice the trade he learned from his father and grandfather before him -- robbing the treasures of ancient tombs.[snip]
"The mountains and valleys in this area are full of caves. All the boys and men in the village search the caves to look for antiquities, and they bring whatever they find to me, because I am the mukhtar, the leader of the village, and I know about all these things," said Abu Moussa, 50, displaying a table covered with treasures, including a 3,000-year-old Canaanite earthenware jug, several oil lamps, decorated bowls, and fistfuls of ancient coins, weights and arrowheads.
"I take everything and I sell it to dealers in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and we share the proceeds among all the village. This is how we support ourselves and make a living," he said.
The article explains that this activity is illegal under the laws of the Palestine Authority and Israel. It was also illegal in the early 1970s when I acquitted the pots that I have described in the Friday Pot Blogging series. Perhaps I now possess a pot that Abu Moussa's father "excavated." Antiquity dealerships in Jerusalem and elsewhere, which were (and are) licensed by the government, sold these pots and other antiquities to tourists, collectors and budding scholars alike. The Israeli government asked no questions as they inspected luggage before boarding a plane for home. This was particularly true if you had a proper receipt with a government stamp on it for the antiquities you purchased. The dealers themselves gladly provided the proper stamped receipt and "declaration of authenticity."
No one thought much of it at the time. I say this not as an excuse but as a matter of fact. As much as I enjoy having the wonderful objects around our home, I would not purchase them today. I was wrong to aid and abet those grave robbers. It is wrong now and it was wrong then. But, while the law has changed in some ways, Israeli and Palestinian Authority policy continue to allow a market for these objects and that is also wrong.
Posted by Duane Smith at November 26, 2006 9:14 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
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